Abelardo and Paco from Plaza Sesamo

This picture might have been posted here before but I found it on the net today and it brought a lot of memories:

That's the very first Abelardo from 1972's Plaza Sésamo. He was a gargantuan stiff dragon. His beak moved with string that was attached to his hand.
It was weird because you could see the guy moving up and down his hand so the beak could move as he asked for "semillas de calabaza" to eat.

Paco was a puppet. He was always screaming out from a window.
An interesting fact from the humans on the show was that the man who played Toño was the spanish voice for Fred Flinstone and Bert. Also, the "woman" on the street was the spanish voice for Wilma.

Thanks for sharing that. I guess they didn't decide to model "Alberdo" after Big Bird until later on.

I have another question while we're on this subject. Did Alberdo the bird once have a different name? I remember Bill Cosby calling him something else (I don't remember what it was) on the 20th Anniversay Special.

Thanks for sharing that. I guess they didn't decide to model "Alberdo" after Big Bird until later on.

I have another question while we're on this subject. Did Alberdo the bird once have a different name? I remember Bill Cosby calling him something else (I don't remember what it was) on the 20th Anniversay Special.

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The very first Plaza Sésamo worked somehow independently from Henson and CTW by that time. My guess is that they bought the Henson puppets segments from CTW and created this "hybrid" of Sesame Street.
Later on they refined the concept by creating "Montoya"; The latin equivalent of Big Bird. He looked very much like the actual Abelardo only that he had a parrot-like voice and acted dumb. "Bodoque"; the latin equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, was always fooling him into stupid situations which the humans had to clarify later on.
The mexican Plaza Sésamo became very famous so eventually CTW took charge of it and Henson re-created Montoya,( named Abelardo Montoya now),making him look somehow "shorter" and playful. Also a blue hairy monster called Pancho substituted the brown Bodoque. Lola also joined the cast as a female Elmo.
I haven't seen the anniversary show yet but my guess is that Bill Cosby mentioned Montoya. That of course if he didn't quoted Abelardo.
It's sad because I read online that the new Plaza Sésamo became too expensive and didn't actually recovered the first investment quickly.
Plaza Sésamo has so many possibilities of being bigger but the money factor has it financially controlled.
If only I had a chance to add my two cents to improve it! Sigh...

I'd never seen those before. Kinda scary to me, but I'm sure he's as sweet as Big Bird! That's neat stuff.

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Scary indeed!! But what the heck, when one is a child even the scariest monster can be cute. Abelardo's voice was slow and dumb and it wasn't performed by the person inside the costume.
I can't remember if he sings or not but I do remember him being scramed away by the screaming Paco many times.
Paco was even scarier because he didn't had a sweet side like Oscar the Grouch has.

Yeah, I was born watching both shows and wondering why they look so different one from the other.
Another funny thing is that...I don't know... but these 72's Plaza Sésamo producers had some sort of black humor in their hearts. They used to scare kids everytime that Paco appeared on the window because he slammed open the doors screaming everytime. It was funny because you could see the scared faces of the kids before he did that.
I imagined them saying something like "Man, not Paco! Why me?? Does my father hates me that much?....I wonder when will the stupid puppet....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH!!!"

The very first Plaza Sésamo worked somehow independently from Henson and CTW by that time. My guess is that they bought the Henson puppets segments from CTW and created this "hybrid" of Sesame Street.
Later on they refined the concept by creating "Montoya"; The latin equivalent of Big Bird. He looked very much like the actual Abelardo only that he had a parrot-like voice and acted dumb. "Bodoque"; the latin equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, was always fooling him into stupid situations which the humans had to clarify later on.
The mexican Plaza Sésamo became very famous so eventually CTW took charge of it and Henson re-created Montoya,( named Abelardo Montoya now),making him look somehow "shorter" and playful. Also a blue hairy monster called Pancho substituted the brown Bodoque. Lola also joined the cast as a female Elmo.
I haven't seen the anniversary show yet but my guess is that Bill Cosby mentioned Montoya. That of course if he didn't quoted Abelardo.
It's sad because I read online that the new Plaza Sésamo became too expensive and didn't actually recovered the first investment quickly.
Plaza Sésamo has so many possibilities of being bigger but the money factor has it financially controlled.
If only I had a chance to add my two cents to improve it! Sigh...

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Oh, I get it, the CTW "Plaza Sesamo" is different from the original Latin American one. I was wondering whatever happened to "Bodoque." Didn't Bill call him "Mazuki Grouch" or something like that?

Thought I'd step in for a moment. Got my VCR hooked up for the tapes I'm getting for the list, but as soon as I can ask my brother I'll switch it to the DVD/VCD machine and check my copy of the SS 20th Anniversary special for that segment.

MuppetMonkey, how's things? Since you speak from knowledge of the show, would you be able to help fill in some gaps regarding the cast of Plaza Sésamo for the list? LMK here and I hope you have a good fin de semana amigo.

That reminds me; could you please let me know the PS character list I gave you? Since you wanted to make the list as full as possible there were a few characters I'd like to add. (Over at the SS characters thread or the ML 15.0 thread.)

Thought I'd step in for a moment. Got my VCR hooked up for the tapes I'm getting for the list, but as soon as I can ask my brother I'll switch it to the DVD/VCD machine and check my copy of the SS 20th Anniversary special for that segment.

MuppetMonkey, how's things? Since you speak from knowledge of the show, would you be able to help fill in some gaps regarding the cast of Plaza Sésamo for the list? LMK here and I hope you have a good fin de semana amigo.

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¿Todo bien, mi hermano?

Where do you guys have that list? I'm not that "Plaza Sésamo" literate but I'll be glad to help.

Dios mio! Where you been at MuppetMonkey? No, don't answer that, I can understand you've been busy with other projects.
The list, in its current form can be found in the Classic Muppets section of the forum, under the thread titled "Muppet Listings 15.0".
What I need help is with some human cast members of PS that I'm not sure whether they did appear or not, and if so, who portrayed them or what their character names were. That sort of stuff. If you can help, perfect; if not, then that's hokay too.
Que descanses.

Dios mio! Where you been at MuppetMonkey? No, don't answer that, I can understand you've been busy with other projects.
The list, in its current form can be found in the Classic Muppets section of the forum, under the thread titled "Muppet Listings 15.0".
What I need help is with some human cast members of PS that I'm not sure whether they did appear or not, and if so, who portrayed them or what their character names were. That sort of stuff. If you can help, perfect; if not, then that's hokay too.
Que descanses.

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MUCHACHO! I've been busy as ever. I was about to send you a note in case you were planing to go to SS Live at Bayamón but I'm late for that already. It was a nice little show.
I'll check the list and see what I can do.

Can believe it. Didn't go that one, nor the showing in Ponce. My cousin took her sons to the one in Bayamón. Thought I'd might go and then render a review, sort of my duty to MC... But it was going to be in Spanish, and I'd like to go to one in English instead.

I've been checking around and there seems to be no trace of information of the 1972 actors. I used to have a webpage in my old computer which listed every single voice and actor that appeared on Plaza Sésamo since the very begining. I'll try to browse for it to see if I can find it again.
Also, I used to work at Telemundo and I know that the old 1972 episodes are still around there somewhere in their archives. If I can get my paws on them I'll let everyone know.
For now, I can tell you that Jorge Arvizu was the actor who played "Toño", the latin equivalent of Mr. Hooper. He played the original spanish Fred Flintstone voice for many years.
Also Rita Rey was the street's "woman" who at the same time played the spanish voice for Wilma Flintstone.

I sure will. I'm absolutely sure that they are inside a vault they call "Siberia" (because it's far-hidden and cold). I saw the tapes once along some old Menudo and Odisea Burbujas episodes.
I don't work there anymore so it'll take time to figure out a way to do so but I'll work on it.